Field
Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to planning, and more particularly to techniques for performing planning processes to generate plans for a manufacturing environment, using block-based workflows.
Description of the Related Art
Manufacturing facilities across many different industries are responsible for producing products that are used in every facet of life. In the case of semiconductor manufacturing, for example, semiconductor manufacturing facilities manufacture products such as microprocessors, memory chips, microcontrollers, and other semiconductor devices that have a ubiquitous presence in everyday life. These semiconductor devices are used in a wide variety of applications, examples of which include automobiles, computers, home appliances, cellular phones, and many others. Further, in recent years, both the number of applications and demand for devices (including semiconductor devices) has steadily increased. This increased demand has led manufacturing facilities to become increasingly conscious of increasing product variety and reducing delivery times.
Each manufacturing environment is unique and extremely complex, often requiring immense amounts of capital for the necessary equipment, tools, facilities, etc. In semiconductor manufacturing environments, for example, the semiconductor manufacturing production process is generally divided into two parts, “front-end” and “back-end,” both of which use different types of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Front-end typically refers to wafer fabrication. For example, front-end manufacturing facilities generally start with blank semiconductor wafers (e.g., silicon wafers) and perform various processes, such as photolithography, deposition, etching, cleaning, ion implantation, chemical and mechanical polishing, etc., to fabricate a completed wafer with many semiconductor die on the wafer. Back-end typically refers to the assembly and testing of individual semiconductors. For example, once the front-end production process is completed, the completed wafers are transferred to a back-end manufacturing facility, which typically performs functions such as dicing the completed wafer into individual semiconductor die, testing, assembly, packaging, etc.
In today's world of just-in-time manufacturing and shipping, it is becoming increasingly important for manufacturing facilities to be able to accurately predict when they will be able to ship a product so that proper commitments can be made to customers. For this reason, many manufacturing facilities typically perform production planning to attempt to predict if and when they will be able to meet customer demand, plan future equipment need based on demand, and the like. Most manufacturing facilities typically use spreadsheet applications (e.g., such as Microsoft® Excel®, and the like) for planning. However, planning with these applications alone is insufficient for large and complex manufacturing facilities, as these applications are cumbersome and can only handle relatively simple calculations.
Further, even in manufacturing facilities that build and implement custom-built planning systems, these custom built planning systems are difficult to maintain and inflexible, which makes it difficult to make modifications to the planning system. In many cases, for example, the manufacturing facility may undergo changes, such as modifications to existing equipment, incorporating new equipment, equipment failures, changes to the facility due to regulatory requirements, etc. Adapting custom-built planning systems to account for such changes can require a level of technical expertise that may not be available to the manufacturing facility (e.g., an end user may not have coding experience, etc.), require a significant time commitment, substantial costs (e.g., due to the complexity of the facilities), etc.
Further yet, in some cases, manufacturing facilities can purchase and implement commercial planning systems to perform planning. Commercial planning systems, however, are generally closed, black box solutions that do not allow customization or control by an end user. In these cases, modifying the planning system is simply not possible without paying the commercial vendor (e.g., to modify the planning system, design a new planning system, etc.), which can be very cost-prohibitive and time-consuming. In addition, traditional planning systems (e.g., spreadsheet applications, custom-built systems, commercial systems, etc.) generally are not capable of evaluating a determined plan and/or troubleshooting in the case of a problem. As a result, identifying potential problems in a particular plan and/or modifying the plan can require immense amounts of time, other expensive solutions, etc., all of which can impact the manufacturing facility's ability to predict whether it can meet the increasing demand for products.